The University of Cantabria is promoting a project to analyse the effects of global change on aquatic ecosystems in Picos de Europa.

“BIOGLOB-Monitoring of the effects of global change on the aquatic ecosystems of the Picos de Europa National Park” is a project of the University of Cantabria that has the collaboration of the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Food and the Environment.

Mountain aquatic ecosystems are excellent observatories for analysing the effects of global change. BIOGLOB is improving a monitoring network of the aquatic ecosystems of the Picos de Europa NP that was designed in coordination with the management team of the NP itself and implemented by the team promoting this proposal. This project uses a network of flow and temperature sensors, cameras and probes, to record different key processes and meteorological parameters. The effects can be consulted in real time from a web portal, where the modelled water flow and temperature for the entire river network are also shown on a daily scale. BIOGLOB also determines the biological communities and different indicators of the functioning of these ecosystems (primary production and respiration) following a BACI (interannual replication) statistical design.

The results obtained are giving continuity to a database that currently has five years of information, from which it is possible to differentiate the natural changes of the aquatic environment (rivers and lakes), from those caused by global change.